1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to hoisting devices and more particularly to a cable winder guide for maintaining the cable within a helical groove on a drum.
2. Background of the Invention
Soon after the first successful stranded iron wire rope was developed in 1834, wire rope proved so superior to hemp rope in serviceability and cost that the use of wire rope soon became widespread in European mining and eventually throughout the rest of the world with broadening applications. Most wire ropes used today are utilized in hoisting and hauling operations. Machinery for these purposes, such as cranes, power shovels, elevators, and hoists, requires a strong, flexible rope. Machinery of this type produces rapid movement and substantial bending stresses on wire rope or cable. The flexibility and strength of wire rope or cable has proven to be ideally suited to meet these stringent requirements.
A hoist is a mechanical device used primarily for raising and lowering heavy loads. Occasionally, hoists may be employed for moving objects horizontally. A hoist generally comprises a combination of one or more fixed pulleys and a moving pulley arranged in a block and tackle configuration. A load attaching means is provided which may be a hook or other similar arrangement or device. A rope (or cable) extends between the load and the motive power for the hoist. The motive power may be either manual or supplied by a mechanical driven engine or an electrical motor device. Manual, mechanical, or electrically powered hoists are commonly mounted to the floor or wall, and are used for varied lifting and hauling operations in factories and warehouses.
Some special purpose adaptations of hoists have been developed as needs have arisen and been identified in the art. One such development resulted in a device which is useful for lifting watercraft from the water for storage. The advantages of removing a vessel from the water are well known to those skilled in the art. The damaging effects resulting from retaining a vessel within the water include tide and wave motion damage to the vessel, harsh destructive effects of electrolysis, the exposure to the hull of marine organisms, and winter freezing. These damaging effects are eliminated or removed when the vessel is removed from the water by a hoist or other means.
As a hoist lifts a load, the retrieved cable is wound about a take-up reel or drum. If the cable becomes skewed and overlaps an adjoining cable turn, this results in a serious binding of the retrieved cable. The binding of the cable prevents release of the cable and subsequent movement of the load. The problem of cable binding has been addressed with limited success by the prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,281,007 to Edward D. Hooker teaches that class of hoisting machinery in which the hoisting cable is wound spirally in a corresponding groove on the winding-drum. The object of the invention is to provide simple, inexpensive means for retaining the cable properly in the groove and preventing the coils from riding one upon another when the cable is relaxed and the helix formed thereby tends to expand. The improvement serves usefully with cables of any materials but is of special advantage when wire cables are employed having the stiffness and elasticity inherent in cables of that description. The invention consists in certain novel features of construction and arrangement by which the above objects are attained.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,850,676 and 1,850,677 U.S. patent to H. F. Kieneman teaches improvements in hose reels of the type adapted to be trundled over the ground for the purpose of winding and unwinding the hose on and off a winding drum that is revolved by tractive power developed in, the hose reel or appliance. The appliance of this invention is adapted especially for use with rubber hose of the type used to sprinkle gardens lawns and to other, grassy plots. The structure of this type of hose possesses elasticity or resiliency sufficiently to maintain its tubular form and thereby pre vent flattening of the hose as it is wound on the drum. In carrying out the invention this type of hose can be wound or coiled on the drum of the reel in such manner as not to obstruct the free flow of water through the coiled or wound hose and on the other hand the water may freely flow through that portion of the hose that remains on the drum while the hose is being used to sprinkle a lawn or garden.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,917,279 to Carter H. Arnold relates to hoisting devices of the type that may be employed to support scaffolds or to pull rope and is similar in some respects to the hoist shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,742,261 to Carter H. Arnold. In the above noted patent (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 2,742,261) there is disclosed a hoisting device adapted to be employed with a hoist having a loaded run and an unloaded run and in which a plurality of loops are formed, portions of which are wrapped around the drum and portions wrapped around means spaced from the drum. By the invention of the cited patent the hoist and its supported structure may be moved along the length of a rope, or the hoist, if held stationary, maybe employed to pull rope relative thereto. The instant invention (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 2,917,279), although having the same general mode of operation of the above noted invention, has certain advantages thereover in the cited patent the rope is subjected to sudden changes in direction which tend to increase the bending stresses therein. In addition, the means for transferring the rope from one winding to the adjacent winding must be relatively strong to withstand the relatively high tensions in the rope, thus increasing the cost of manufacture and in some instances, resulting in relatively high friction loses. The main object of the present invention is therefore to overcome certain disadvantages of the above noted type of hoist. Another object of the invention is the provision of a single drum hoist that does not subject the rope to sharp changes in direction and which therefor does not build up high stresses in the rope.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,150,861 to Fred E. Ahlbin teaches cable winches in which a driven reel winds up a length of cable thereon, and the present application is a continuation-in-part of his prior application Ser. No. 827,639, filed Jul. 16, 1959, and now abandoned. Prior to the present invention many types of winches have been devised to wind up on reels lengths of relatively stiff wire rope or steel wire cable. Experience of those skilled in the practical art has led them to adopt uniformly, the conclusion that such cable, even when of the small diameters, could not be wound up consistently on reels with the successive turns in each course or layer neatly laid down about the reel tread or core barrel in adjacent orderly fashion if the core barrel or tread is less than three inches in diameter. This was particularly evident after a cable had been repeatedly strained underloads during successive reelings and become worn or abraded by considerable service. Turns of a steel wirecable have considerable spring action tending to straighten out the lengths thereof in the turns, which tendency is greater in turns of smaller diameter. Consequently, when such strained and worn cable is wound up on drams or reel barrels of small diameter without suitable guiding confinement the turns frequently skew and the cable kinks and tangles up on the small drums or barrels during the winding. This tendency is also present to a degree in the use of larger reeling drums and barrels. Many complicated and costly traveling guiding devices have been devised for the purpose of eliminating or minimizing this difficulty and these have had a degree of success in heavy winch equipment for large cables. However, it is not practical to use such devices in economical winch structures for the smaller cables. It is an object of the present invention to eliminate these problems or minimize them to a practical degree. Another object of the present invention is to provide a very simple constructed guiding means for small diameter cable, eg., of the order of five thirty seconds of an inch) in diameter, which is economically produced in mass manufacturing procedure and readily mounted in simple winches for such service, such guiding means requiring no traverse traveling parts while serving effectively to lay down on the reels thereof in orderly fashion the successive cable turns.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,260,508 to Edgar R. Powell teaches a hoist for transporting heavy loads from one location to another and more particularly to a balancing hoist which relieves most of the weight of the load to enable an operator to manually move a heavy load between locations. A balancing hoist according to the invention includes a chamber or cylinder containing a fluid, usually air, under pressure, with the air being compressed as a load carried by the hoist is lowered and with the air being allowed to expand as the load is raised. With this arrangement, part of the load is offset or balanced by the air pressure when the load is raised or lowered or remains stationary. By regulating the pressure of the air in the hoist chamber, a load of almost any size can be handled with case. Since a product or load of a particular size and weight is usually handled by the hoist, being transferred from one conveyor to another, for example, the pressure in the cylinder can be regulated to balance that load so that no further adjustment is required. The pressure is preferably set so that a small force is required to raise and lower the load with this force usually being from about two percent to about ten percent of the actual weight of the load. The hoist operator can then move the load about, raising and lowering it, as though it weighed but a few pounds. The operator thus exercises and uses the same muscles he otherwise would if carrying a load directly but does so without strain or becoming tired.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,582 to O. M. Ulbing relates to cable or rope hoists, winches, reels, and the like and especially to rope suspending reel assemblies, and teaches a rope suspending reel with a helical rope groove rotatably supported on an axis which is canted at an angle to align the rope directly with the groove.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,634,078 to Kaufmann et al. teaches a rope guide having a threaded guide segment and a threaded holding segment with a hold down device covering at least a part of a single rope loop on a grooved drum; the segments are made of a synthetic material and their threadings engage the groove of the drum; a slot forming element is fastened to the guide segment and the rope runs through the slot towards the drum; roller mounts are mounted by a pin on the guide segment and carry spring biased rollers forcing the rope into the drum groove.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,251 to G. A. Porter teaches a pulley assembly provided for an operating cord. The pulley has a body with a rotational axis and an annular outer surface concentric with the rotational axis. A cord retention member has a surface to be situated around the annular outer pulley surface in operative relationship with the pulley and extending more than 180 degrees around the annular outer pulley surface. Structure is provided on the pulley and cord retention member to cooperate with the cord so that the cord prevents separation of the pulley and cord retention member from their operative relationship.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,367 to J. Zaguroli, Jr. teaches a safety device for an air balancing hoist including one or more piston and cylinder shock absorbers engaged by one end of the drum ball nut, which creates a substantial retarding force at high speed but does not generate significant impeding forces at low speeds.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,832 to J. Zaguroli, Jr. teaches an air balancing hoist having an axially movable drum reel supported on a ball nut and screw with a piston defining a pressure chamber containing regulated air pressure acting on one end of the drum reel to counter the unwinding force of a load supported on a cable wound on the drum reel. A centrifugal brake retards drum rotation when there is a sudden release of the load tending to cause too rapid wind up of the cable by the regulated air pressure applied on the piston.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,543 to E. Kobayasi et al. teaches a hand operated chain block which is capable of fixing as end of a load chain of unloading side and also ensuring smooth wind up and down operation of the load chain, while reducing the size of chain block. In the hand operated chain block, the fixing pin is located at a position in a marginal portion around each side plate such that an interval between a chain split and a rotation trail of a tip of an end portion on the loading side of the first link of the load chain rotatably supported by the fixing pin can be made larger than a width of a link of the load chain, and also that when a full length of the load chain of loading side is wound down, an end portion on the loading side of the second link next to the first link can abut with the end portion on the unloading side of the chain guide.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,098,962 to N. C. Henly teaches a gypsy-type winch having a sheave for driving a rope, chain or rope-chain pulling element. The pulling element is urged into contact with the sheave by a spring assembly acting on the element at positions spaced apart from each other and in different sides respectively of a first diameter extending between the inlet and outlet runs of the element, but both on one side of a second diameter perpendicular to the first.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved cable winder guide which overcomes some of the deficiencies of the prior art.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved cable winder guide for a retainer resiliently engaging the cable and maintaining the cable within a helical groove.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the present invention. These objects should be construed as being merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the invention. Many other beneficial results can be obtained by applying the disclosed invention in a different manner or modifying the invention with in the scope of the invention. Accordingly other objects in a full understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the summary of the invention, the detailed description describing the preferred embodiment in addition to the scope of the invention defined by the claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.